


past/present/future

by Xsanguine8 (Wishunew)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canon Chatacter Death, Gen, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Nueral Ghost!Yancy, Other, random flash writing, some scars dont need to be talked about, thinking deep thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wishunew/pseuds/Xsanguine8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh cant die. Yancy wouldnt let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	past/present/future

It would have been easier, in the long run, just to let himself die. give up and lay down arms. watch the world crawl over his bones in a mad scramble for safety from the nightmares that crawled up from the deep. Easier in every aspect.

 

But Raleigh didn't do easy, never had, never will. But that didn't mean he didn't wish he could have just given up, when the hunger got to much, a solid emptiness in his stomach that rolled like the ocean on that cold, dark night exactly-

 

No. He wasn't thinking about that. Not now. Right now he was thinking about a job. He was only thinking about breakfast in the morning, a hole punch in his ration card that meant he'd had enough calories to stay alive until lunch, as whoever the foreman had invited to have at the "pussy ass flyboy"  grunted his completion behind him, Raleigh biting into his hand to keep from gagging at the feel of the strangers warmth inside him.

 

He hated that the foreman had so much power over him, but if Raleigh didn't put out, he didnt eat. And he needed to eat. He couldn't just lay down and Die. He tried, five years and three month ago he refused to leave his bed, didn't move, no one would come to check on him anyway.

 

That had been the first time He'd seen Yancy since his dead. His brother was still dressed in the drive-suit, hadn't said anything, just stood over him, watching him with this look of.. disappointment.

 

So he'd found work, the only work that would take him. and took him it had.

 

Some Days, since the "arrangement", were okay, in a way. they didn't hurt, and were over fast, and they never tried to get him off with them, and they liked it when he was silent. Then there were those that wanted him to enjoy it, took hours to watch him squirm, get inside his brain and shake things up as his body betrayed him, who liked it when he whimpered. And then there were the ones that would take him apart, rib and tear and shred his body until he could hardly stand, reduced to using the safty harness more than necessary just to keep his footing. They liked to hear his screams.

 

Through this all Yancy was there, and Raleigh hated it at first, tried to block him out, but the ghost just held his hand, the cold metal of the drive suit gloves becoming an anchor, as the older man whispered praises and hopes and brought back good memories in the back of his mind to help him get through.

 

"You're living for both of us now, Little brother" he would say, did say, as Raleigh slumped into his cot, shaking with exhaustion and self loathing, "you need to eat. something is coming. You'll be saved"

 

"When, Yanc" he sobbed into his pillow, "when?" torn between wanting to collapse and never move, and needing to get up to clean. When Yancy didn't answer, the latter urge won out as he forced himself up, groaning as the muscles in his legs and his back protested, pulling cloths on and setting about striping the bed, ignoring the tears and the pain and the heartbroken look of his brother.

 

"Go up on the wall tomorrow" Yancy voiced, leaning against the bed frame, "You heard Miles, there will be an opening. You'll get the top. The altitude always helped clear your head" Raleigh grunted and layed down on the clean spread, glancing up at the ghost of his brother.

 

"I miss you" he said, since he was an open nerve anyway. Not like Yancy could judge him for going soft, he was dead. The older man flicked out of existence, before appearing next to him, laying beside him, the cold of the suit seeping into the younger Becket, bringing a much needed numbness to his thoughts and body.

 

"I know, little brother. But I'll always be here when you need me."

 

\---

 

Raleigh sometimes wondered if she could see and hear Yancy too, but she never acknowledged the Older Becket, not once. But she was Japanese, maybe she thought it was inappropriate to converse with her co-pilots dead brother, or hallucination, or whatever Yancy the Ghost really was. No, what had Mako called it... Neural Ghosting? He’d liked it.

 

It was an unknown phenomenon, Raleigh being the only person alive to survive the dead of his co-pilot, He got to name it, but Makos idea felt right. Leftover thoughts and memories from a broken connection. A drift hangover with his dead brother. Sometimes it freaked him out, but it had saved his life, kept him going, through everything.

 

But when the nightmares came, and he couldn't sleep because the hands and the touches and the pain, the deep cold and oh god, his arm is gone! it wasn't Yancy that would wake him up anymore. It was Mako, who would gently shake him awake. She never tried to pry about it, about what he said when he talked in his sleep, why he always woke up in tears, it was just something she did. Hell, he'd woken her from several nightmares of her own, though he’d never had that broken soul look on his face when he’d done it.

 

They would just go down to the gym and work and work and work until they were too tired to dream anymore. he told her once that if they ever got a new Jaeger, not that they'd need one because Gipsy was the best, they should name it Nightmare. She may or may not have thought it was funny, depending on how one interpreted an elbow to the gut and a soft, "go to bed Mr. Becket or so help me"

 

\---

 

They were going to do it. Close the breach, save the world. He looked around for Yancy, but he wasn’t there, Just Mako, looking at him with the same strong willed determination she'd always carried. and then he realized. Carrying Yancy around was never about living, it was about not dying. Not starving to death, not giving up. But Mako... Mako was about _never_ giving up. Mako was a future that Raleigh had never thought possible. not After Yancy had been ripped away, not after everything he'd gotten in his life since then had been earned on his knees. She was possibilities.

 

So he had to save her. He was a broken soldier, who'd thought more about rolling over in dying in the past five years than finding anything worth loving for. He wasn't good, not even great really. He was just a fighter, just a dirty boy who wanted to live to see another day. Not like Mako, who was brilliant, Stacker wasn't one to praise lightly. She was everything he wasn't, everything he'd never tried to be, couldn't be. And she needed to to live because of that.

 

Yancy helped him, helped him out of the harness, helped him reach the manual self destruct. But it was Mako in his head that told him to level out Gipsy, told him there was enough time to get to the escape pod.

 

Yancy died with Gipsy Danger, though his Neural Ghost was still with Raleigh, he saw him less and less. Yancy was his past. Mako was his future.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was just in my head and i had to type it up. I know that they dont really talk about Raleighs damaged past, but it didnt feel right for them to sit down and have a heart to heart. they'd only dirfted together once, and my theory on Drifting is that you experience eachothers memories so fast you cant really catch glimpses of anything solid. Unless they chased the rabbit, in which case you then experiance the whole memory.
> 
> So just like Mako knew Stacker was sick and Raleigh didnt despite drifting, Mako doesnt know what Raleigh has been though. Maybe I'll write more about it idk. hope you enjoyed.


End file.
